Thoughts on social media, tech and life from a digital native.

Menu

Dennis Crowley: The Anti-Zuckerberg

As my Twitter followers may know, I have quite a fondness for foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley. Aside from his involvement in not one, but two location-based apps — his foursquare precursor, Dodgeball, was acquired Google in 2005 and discontinued in 2009 — Dennis is overall a stand-up guy who somehow finds time to put up with the ridiculous pick-up lines that my good friend Macy and I throw at him via Twitter on a regular basis.

I’ve thought highly of Dennis from the first time he replied back to a tweet I posted, and since then, he’s helped me get connected to the foursquare team, a connection that has proved invaluable to the Lava Row team and the companies we work with. Despite the growing success of foursquare, Dennis seems to have a good head on his shoulders, which is why I wasn’t surprised to see remarks about his humility during a speech he gave at this week’s DLD conference in Munich.

In a community where Dennis’ peers (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg in particular) often come off as arrogant or standoffish, it’s refreshing to see a leader who rises above his company’s success to expound on the company’s future goals and its opportunities for continued success. I’m excited to see where foursquare will go in the upcoming months and years; with Dennis at the helm, I’m sure what lies ahead will be worth checking out — and checking in.